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Can anyone recommend a decent camera, preferably SLR, with interchangeable lenses suitable for someone wanting to move up from a starter level digital camera? It's for a potential Christmas present. It'd be nice if the price wasn't over £250...

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I'm a complete novice in the DSLR camp, but love my Nikon D3000 I bought. Cost just over £300 about 6 months ago. Has great features to help a beginner understand what to do.

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Nikon D3000; 10-20mm, 18-55mm, 55-300mm

Canon EOS 450D. I've been using one for 18 months and it was well worth the extra expense....well over £250 I'm afraid but it's a quality product with a lot of features.

Some bargains here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-Digital- ... 964&sr=8-1

Nikon D40x with 18-55mm kit lens can be had for around the £250-£275. I started with the D40 and it was a great introduction to the DSLR world.

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As essexdiver said ^^^^^

Or the new Nikon D3100 is supposed to be an excellent camera although is it a lot more than £250.

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Is there any point do you think in looking at the new 'in between' sector for cameras with interchangeable lenses in the 'super-compact' range? Like many of you I started with the Nikon D40 and it was great for the purpose, but they're hard to find now - although I did see the rather more highly specced D40x on sale somewhere.

I might even have a look at 35mm film cameras as these have all the right features usually but which one, and from which source? My lenses etc are Nikon so it would be nice (but not essential) to stick with the brand... heck, I learned on a manual only Zenith B 35mm camera years ago and that was very handy so any 'off the wall' suggestions would be welcome. I'm not really up to date with equipment these days.

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Don't know if you are considering used or not. B&H photo in New York City has a nice assortment of used equipment right now. Here is a link to that page on their website

I have bought many things from them over the years, including my Nikon D40. Their ratings for used stuff is well explained and quite accurate. They ship internationally and their shipping rates are reasonable.

As a side note: since you think a high percentages of us yanks are church goers... I thought I should tell you— the folks who own B&H are devout Jews. Even their website does not work on the Sabbath.

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I started with a Canon 350D. You can get them and the 400D quite cheaply on eBay now. Very capable cameras. I don't know if second hand is an issue though.

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Trying checking out these sites. We have used all of them at some point and have never been disappointed by them.
http://www.lcegroup.co.uk/
https://secure.ffordes.com/index.htm
http://www.cameraworld.co.uk/
http://www.mathersoflancashire.co.uk/
As well as possibly looking at second hand cameras have a look at refurbs as well as they usually come with a years warranty.
I got a refurb Nikon D70 from Camera World a few years back that has taken over 20,000 photos to date and is still going strong and it only cost a fraction of the full retail price I paid for another D70.

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FE I'm looking at buying a 400 or 20 for my son, but I have to say I'm confused!! He is 11 so the smaller size seems a good idea as does the cleaning system, pixel count and age. People keep going on about the metal body, build quality, higher ISO etc of the 20D.

I have just bought a 60D for me which is plastic not metal but it seems good enough to me. He wants to connect it to his telescope, take pictures of our ponies and dogs as well as at the local Wildfowl Trust.

Any advice is gladly received, but it does have to be canon as he will be sharing my lenses.

The 350D, 400D, 450D, 500D and 550D are all based on the same size body. I found the 350D a little too small for my hands but was the perfect "starter" SLR. I eventually upgraded to the 50D which is much easier to hold and is far better specced.

Newer models will invariably have better specs. I recommend you get your son to try each camera, after all he's the one going to be using it. After that, settle on whatever you can afford bearing in mind it'll always be superseded by a newer model!

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Tech collection: iMac 5K, Mac Pro (x2), Mac Mini (x4), PowerMac G5, G4, 9600, iPad Pro, iPhone SE2
Photography collection: Canon 5D Mk3, Canon 50D (infrared converted), and too many lenses...
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Cheers FE, he has been playing with my camera (I'm not allowed to as it's not my birthday until Friday) and seems to find that ok, we can stretch (just!) to a 30D that is in great nick from MPB Photographic, so I think we will go for that. It seems to be a similar size and weight to mine, we can't try it out (a Christmas surprise) so I feel happier with one as near to mine as possible.

Back in the days of film, cameras had a ring around the lens with which you could adjust the aperture, and a dial on top of the camera that had each of the available shutter speeds painted onto it with which you could vary the shutter speed accordingly. I miss that simplicity.

Does anyone know if there is a DSLR with such easy to use and understand controls available today?

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The D3100 has a "Guide" mode which does exactly what it says. It guides the user through all the settings.

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I'm never wrong, I'm just less right on occasions.